As you know from my Winter Weekend Packing for Des Moines post from a couple of days ago, I spent the weekend in Iowa a couple weekends ago! I went for a long weekend to visit my best friend [Ashlyn] and help another great friend [Jackie] with some wedding planning. I'm going to be heading out to Iowa a few more times in the upcoming months which is really exciting because I consider it my home away from home.
Anyways enough of my emotional mush, I spent a 3 day weekend with two of my great girlfriends and on the Saturday, Ashlyn took me all around Des Moines to do some exploring! She's knows my love for venturing through places to visit where I love and find new places to love so that's exactly what we did all day. We started off with a great lunch at Zombie Burger, which is an old favorite of mine! Since I don't get to go as often as before, I ordered my all time favorite burger, the Walking Ched with garlic blue cheese fries and a Ciderboys Magic Apple hard cider. Everything was absolutely delicious and totally worth the wait. There is always a long wait at Zombie Burger if you want to have seated service. They handle it well though. They take your phone number down and text you when your table is ready. You then have 10 minutes to present yourself before you forfeit your table. This way you can walk around the East Village (which is really up and coming and we'll talk about in a minute) instead of waiting in a crowded restaurant. Or if you're cool with sitting in a little booth or getting it to go, you can order at the counter and get your food in about 10 minutes.
Outfit details:
Shirt (similar) - JCrew // Jeans Gap // Hat - Target // Jacket (similar) - JCrew // Sunglasses - Dollar Store // Booties - Forever 21 // Longchamp Large Le Pilage - Nordstrom
Shirt (similar) - JCrew // Jeans Gap // Hat - Target // Jacket (similar) - JCrew // Sunglasses - Dollar Store // Booties - Forever 21 // Longchamp Large Le Pilage - Nordstrom
After our yummy lunch, we walked around the East Village and did some shopping. We went in and out of a bunch of stores but my favorites and ones that I bought things from were Raygun, Ephemera Stationery Studio, and AllSpice Culinarium. All the stores were awesome, but I did have to contain myself and not buy the whole village! It's definitely an up and coming neighborhood with lots of additions coming in the near future. It's vibrant and fun and worth a lot more exploring!
Next on the agenda was to go visit the Iowa Capitol. Whenever I get a chance I like to visit and bask in its glory. It's the most beautiful state capitol building I've ever seen. They offer tours inside and even though I've never been, I'm sure they're wonderful. Maybe one time when Caleb and I are out there again we'll take advantage of that tour.
The Pappajohn Sculpture Park was our next stop and it was pretty dang cool. It's rather small but that makes it manageable to walk through it even when it's in the middle of winter! There are some interesting pieces to see to say the least. Some are a little creepy, but some are very fun!
After all that walking around we needed a pick me up, so we headed over to Java Joes Coffehouse, which is located right downtown. They had a special Valentine's Day drink that was a Strawberry Vanilla Latte and it was AMAZING. I need to find out if Starbucks can replicate that, because WOW. They also had the cutest greeting cards for sale! I picked up a couple cute ones for my stash of cards, of course.
A delicious and hearty dinner was in order after our long but very fun day of exploring, so we headed out to John & Nick's. My first impression of the place wasn't the greatest because they apparently don't take reservations and only operate on a call ahead service. Being from Chicago, this was very strange to me but we went with it. However, they ended up not taking our name when we called! So when we got there we had to go to the bottom of the list and it was a 50 minute wait. We could wait in the lounge or stand in the lobby. We opted to stand in the lobby since there was no seating available in the lounge, and we actually ended up waiting for 70 minutes! However, the food made up for it. It was worth the wait. We had the havarti shrimp as our appetizer, and I had the prime rib for my entree. It was so good my mouth is watering just writing about it. They also had one of my favorite wines, Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon by the glass. That right there is a huge pro! I'm definitely going to keep in mind the waiting situation in the future, and I advise anyone visiting/living in Des Moines that wants to try out this restaurant to do the same.
We topped the night off with a drink at Blue Moon Dueling Piano Bar. It was super entertaining and a very fun atmosphere. They did charge a $5 cover, but the drinks were really cheap. I give it a thumbs up!
All in all it was a wonderful trip, and I'm so grateful to still get to go back to my home away from home as often as I do. It was nice seeing you again Des Moines!
Follow me on Instagram to always be update to date on where I'm adventuring through! I always have my currently exploring location in the bio!
We topped the night off with a drink at Blue Moon Dueling Piano Bar. It was super entertaining and a very fun atmosphere. They did charge a $5 cover, but the drinks were really cheap. I give it a thumbs up!
All in all it was a wonderful trip, and I'm so grateful to still get to go back to my home away from home as often as I do. It was nice seeing you again Des Moines!
Follow me on Instagram to always be update to date on where I'm adventuring through! I always have my currently exploring location in the bio!